


know you more, and different

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, M/M, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 12:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5290748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all of Charles's slight apprehensions about this visit and meeting Erik's mother, he hadn't been expecting this, the slight air of awkwardness that's been following Erik around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	know you more, and different

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Red](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red/gifts).



It's the familiar sensation of Erik's lips against the nape of his neck that wakes Charles up.

"I'm not having sex with you in your mother's house," Charles says. He's trying for stern, but he's not certain it comes through clearly amidst the grogginess.

Erik's actions stop at Charles's words. He doesn't move, though. His body's pressed up close to Charles everywhere Charles can feel it, and his breath's still warm and soft and light against the delicate skin at the base of his neck.

"She's an entire floor away, you know," Erik says, in his most logical tone, the same one he always uses to cajole Charles into agreeing that he's right and Charles is wrong about whatever issue they happen to be in disagreement over . "And she's half-deaf anyway."

"Not happening," Charles says, standing firm. 

Erik lets out a heavy, long-suffering sigh and pulls away, which causes the mattress to sag a little between them.

Charles pushes himself up, rearranging his pillows so he can turn over. It takes more effort to do so in this sofa bed, with its ancient creaky mattress, than it does at home, and he spares a moment to think of the luxurious king-sized bed awaiting them back there.

Erik's sprawled on his back, taking up more than his fair share of room. One hand is resting on the blanket across his belly and the other slung loosely over his head. 

"This was your idea, you know," Charles says. "We could still get a hotel room for the rest of the visit." That is, of course, what Charles had wanted to do in the first place. 

There's enough light coming in from the open doorway to the kitchen, with the bulb over the stove that stays on all night, that Charles can see it clearly as Erik rolls his eyes.

"Are you kidding? It would break her heart. I finally come home after a year away and I don't even stay with her? I'd never hear the end of it."

"We could still spend the days here. We couldn't even be that far."

Erik smiles ruefully. "It wouldn't matter."

Charles doesn't quite understand that. In Mrs. Lehnsherr's place, he would think he'd be relieved to have the two of them out of his hair a little, to have a little space to breathe and regroup. When they arrived here, the first two words that came to mind to describe the house were "tiny" and "crowded." It makes an interesting contrast to Erik's own decorating style, which lives somewhere at the intersection of "minimalist" and "slovenly."

He'd been worried a little, actually, but he's had no trouble getting around; despite the fullness of the rooms, there are nice clearly defined paths for his wheelchair to navigate. There's a considerable amount of things stuffed upstairs into the guest room (Erik's childhood bedroom) to make room, apparently. 

"Mm, well," Charles says. He reaches out and lays his hand atop Erik's. "You can go a few days without. It'll be all the sweeter once we get back home, yeah? Maybe you can get out the purple one again for me." Erik's collection of dicks is varied and thorough, and Charles is very fond of each of them in their own ways; the purple one is merely the biggest, and thus confined to special occasions.

"Don't be a tease," Erik mutters.

Charles bites his lip, looking down at Erik a moment longer. "I did mean it, you know," he says eventually. "We could get a hotel. I know you've been so excited about this, but--you've been so tense since we arrived." 

It's not as though Erik is ever exactly easy-going or loose, but this is different from usual, a sort of stiffness around the shoulders that hasn't gone away the entire day they've been here. It's all the more unexpected given how much Erik has been looking forward to this holiday and seeing his mother again. 

Erik has always talked about his mother with a sort of fond joy that couldn't be more antithetical to Charles's own familial experiences. He talks on the phone with her every weekend. Charles has been a little worried, really, that he would be the third wheel the entire week, but Erik had insisted he come and be introduced officially, finally. 

He'd been a little worried about a lot of things, really, if he admits it to himself. He and Erik have been together for the better part of three years now, cohabiting for almost two. It's well past time for him to have met Mrs. Lehnsherr, he supposes, by any reasonable standard. It's just that...well, he's not entirely sure how this is meant to go. He doesn't really have any past experiences to draw upon in this regard. He's entitled to a bit of nervousness, he thinks. 

For all of Charles's slight apprehensions, though, he hadn't been expecting this, the slight air of awkwardness that's been following Erik around. Erik is so rarely awkward; he's too self-contained for that, too sure of himself. 

"It's nothing," Erik says, and then, after a moment of Charles's silent, obvious doubt, "It's...that thing. Going back home, you know, in the place where you grew up, and around your mom--it's like time travel, only vicious. Like maybe none of those years between happened in the first place."

Charles hasn't actually gone back to the house he grew up in since he left for college, so he has no personal experience to compare, but--well, that does sound horrific, certainly. It does make sense, he supposes. This house must be a concentrated shot of Erik's childhood. It's too dark to see the decorations in the room right now, but every wall is covered with a million framed photographs of Erik, ranging from birth up right up to a few years ago

Charles had spent some time this afternoon looking over them, after they arrived. It left him somewhat unsettled. The baby and toddler pictures tended towards the pink, ruffles and lace; the grade school pictures featured a pigtailed tomboy; and then adolescence, all oversized hoodies and baggy jeans and shaggy hair covering up a sharp face. There were only a handful of pictures, all from the last five years or so, where Charles could really recognize Erik as himself at all--the Erik he met and fell in love with, the Erik he knows better and more completely than any other person on this planet. It's not only in his looks, but attitude: that sense of himself, of his comfort in his own skin.

He'd fallen for Erik instantly, that focused, razor-sharp mind thrilling enough to make everyone else at the mutant center that day fade away into the background, muddy and washed out next to Erik's clarity and strength and stubbornness. 

No wonder it's unsettling, seeing Erik uncertain, when Charles is so accustomed to that.

"You're you," Charles says. "I promise. You're twenty-five years old and you have a real job and a car and you live with your fabulous hot boyfriend in an apartment you pay rent on every month and you can eat ice cream for dinner any time you want."

Erik doesn't laugh, but Charles knows he's at least a little amused. It's impossible to hide it completely from a telepath. 

"Fine," Erik says, "I get it. Now go back and tell that all to sixteen-year-old Ruth, will you? I needed it more then than I do now."

"All right. Anything else I should pass along while I'm there?"

"Oh, jeez, I'm sure I can think up a long list if you have a pen."

"Am I sixteen in this scenario, too?" Charles asks. "Because I have to tell you, sixteen-year-old me would be much less fussy about having sex on the sofa bed."

Not that he'd been particularly fussy about sex in general at that age. He'd only just escaped then from Kurt and his mother's house, and Oxford was full of excitement and distractions and a fierce determination to be someone different, adult, his own man. Sex had been a considerable part of that, and not a part he was particularly discriminate about.

That teenager seems as far away from himself now as the pictures on the wall seem from Erik.

"Well, that's too bad," Erik says, snorting, "because I wouldn't have touched you with a ten foot pole back then. "

Charles raises an eyebrow. "Should I be offended? My spots weren't _that_ bad. Mostly."

"Nothing personal," Erik assures him. "It's just that at that point I had convinced myself I was just a really butch lesbian." Erik curls onto his side again, so he and Charles are facing one another. Erik looks thoughtful. "You know, my mother was so supportive when I came out to her. She was relieved, I think. So was I. Everything seemed to finally make sense."

"Except it wasn't true," Charles says.

"Yeah," Erik agrees. "And then I went to college and figured things out, and...came out to her _again_. And she's still supportive. But--" Erik shakes his head.

"She loves you," Charles says. "I've only been around her a few hours and I can tell she loves you more than anything else on Earth." It would have been impossible not to notice; it radiated out from her mind like sunlight, this great and complicated, tangled mass of a thing. She didn't understand Erik, perhaps, but love: yes.

"I know that," Erik says--not quite dismissively, but close. "It's not the point."

Charles isn't sure exactly what the point _is_ , but he doesn't want to say that out loud.

Erik can see it, though, because he does finally smile. "Go to sleep, Charles, if you're not going to change your mind about fucking. She'll have us up early to help start preparing the feast. I'm sure you'll have more than your fill of childhood stories then."

"If I don't burn down the kitchen first," Charles says.

"I already warned her not to let you near the stove," Erik reassures him, before leaning in close to press a brief goodnight kiss to Charles's cheek.

Erik falls asleep fairly quickly after that, but Charles lies awake for quite a long time on the lumpy mattress.

He'll try again to convince Erik tomorrow about the advantages of a hotel. Charles is willing to bear whatever blame Mrs. Lehnsherr might decide to bestow. It would be worth it. Not so much for the comfort, and not for sex, but--a neutral zone. Somewhere Erik might relax, put down that weight of history and expectations and loving pressure.

He will bring it up over breakfast, Charles decides, and with that settled he falls back asleep himself.


End file.
